Sustaining Health, Growing Wealth

And this is a special episode. We are actually um, syndicating this in podcast on Start, Scale, Exit, Repeat, Serial Entrepreneur Secrets Revealed. Uh, if you’re not, if you do not already know this, we actually do run another show other than, other than, uh, Start, Scale, Exit, Repeat. We run The Complete Entrepreneur every Thursday at 5 o’clock Eastern.

And today we’re talking about wealth. versus health and maybe good timing because I’m actually just getting over a cold. Michael Gilmore is our host. Thank you, Michael. You’ve come in from Australia. I’m really looking forward to talking about wealth versus health. And is there a trade off, uh, and should we be thinking about that trade off in our entrepreneurial journey?

Colin, it’s great to be back here, that’s for sure. Yeah, it’s, um, We had a bit of a, a bit of a break there with, um, the Complete Entrepreneur. We’re back on deck. And it’s wonderful to have people as they come and join the, The room. And, um, as we take a look at this really exciting topic and an interesting topic, Colin, which is wealth versus health.

And, um, it’s, it’s, it’s a trade off that I think many entrepreneur entrepreneurs make. And I’m sorry to hear Colin. Did you just get it over a cold? That’s for sure. Let’s just be, you’re, you’re being a bit more healthy, getting a bit more healthy. That’s for sure. I am. I am. And you know, you got to take care of yourself, you know, you have to.

Learn to take those times off and, and rebalance your life and, and don’t let your business overwhelm, uh, yourself and, and, and even affect your health. You know, I’ve got some stories we’ll talk about in a few minutes, Michael, but I think it’s an interesting topic that entrepreneurs don’t often face. You know, we always talk about what’s the next hack we can do to make the million dollars in a weekend.

Or what is it that we’re going to do now that is going to get us the next deal? And we don’t think about, is there a balance between health and wealth? And how does, you know, how do we actually apply that to? We can actually sit there and say, yeah, we think there’s a balance. But what do we actually do?

Like, how do we actually make that? Put that balance into place. Yeah, it’s, it’s, it’s one of the biggest challenges, I think, um, for an entrepreneur is that you’re working, like, I don’t know about you, Colin, but I, I work long hours, okay, um, 1240 nowadays is, is, is regular. And how do you still maintain a healthy lifestyle during the frenetic pace of your businesses and things like that?

And when your businesses can become all consuming. And you’re sort of thinking to yourself, yeah, I know I’m supposed to do some exercise. Oh, I know that that pizza looks great because it’s just there versus eating something healthy. I know that I need to set some time aside for my mental well being as well.

I know I’ve got to do all those things, but you know what? I’ve got a board meeting coming up, I’ve got an issue with a supplier, I’ve got a major customer threatening to leave, I’ve got problems with staff, um, and I’ve got to make sure I meet payroll next week. All those sort of things come and impinge on us and we’re essentially, I always view it like this, is that if we Had our own trust account and we’ve been depositing in our trust account for year after year and then you start a business and many of us start withdrawing from our trust account or our health account as such.

Yeah, withdrawing and what happens when you take that little bit more out of your health account and it goes into a negative situation? Do you end up in the ER? You end up with some chronic illness or, um, and things like that. So how do we balance all these things? That is really the topic for today’s conversation.

And I think it’s going to be one column where we’re going to have a great time. Um, but we’re only going to have a great time though, if we have people from the audience there come up on the stage. So if you’re thinking to yourself, gee, boy, have I got a story to tell you guys. Um, the share of everyone here that please put your hand up and we would love to have you up on stage here with us.

So it’s not just Colin and I talking, but it’s also you, the members of this great community here at Startup. club. But anyway, you’re listening to the Complete Entrepreneur and it’s a show that’s at 5 p. m. Eastern time each and every Thursday. And, uh, today’s topic is looking at health. Or wealth versus health.

So, um, Colin, you have some stories to tell about your situations in life. Yeah, and um, I’m just going to read a little section from the book here. Those of you who have listened to this podcast or who have, you know, here on, um, here on Clubhouse know that we published a book last October 3rd called Start, Scale, Exit, Repeat.

It’s become a number one bestseller in 13 categories. On Amazon, even today, I was looking at it, and the Audible is number nine for its category in entrepreneurship. And, uh, it’s done extremely well. Uh, we talk about the toll of the entrepreneur. So, Michael, if you’ll just bear with me for a minute. I just want to read this very briefly.

And I see Jaffee we have in the audience there as well. I would really like to do a reading on your show, Jaffee. As well, but, uh, every month I meet with seven other individuals and share my personal family and, um, even my, uh, the business with these seven individuals through an organization called EO.

And in 2017, my form confronted me about my life. See, at that time I was very successful, but I was also a workaholic. My entire identity was based on my companies and I was ignoring other aspects of my life and other areas of my life. Well, thankfully, my family stuck through the challenges and continued to support me, but I had to let my health, I had let my health deteriorate.

I traveled way too much. I did drink a little too much wine to numb the stress. You know, those meetings and the anxiety and continue to work day, day and night on my businesses. Look, even if you’re in startup mode, it’s worth it while to connect yourself with some type of community. Okay. We’ve talked about joining an incubator.

Uh, to help your business to get started to connect with the community. There are a lot of communities out there, even on clubhouse. I think that this is an, this is a community and connecting with the community, like clubhouse and sharing and talking about. The challenges that you have and getting help from others is so important and so critical.

And that’s what happened to me in 2017. And it really was a life changing moment for me. And, uh, and at that point I, I re engineered my companies, I stepped back and I never longer did the, the, the, the 60, 70 hours a week. I no longer, um, acted as CEO. I just became. You know, sort of the chairman and investor.

I delegated responsibilities and not tasks. And I know we’ve talked a lot about this concept, Michael, but let me be clear here, delegating responsibilities and not tasks, not just tasks is good. Let me get the dog going here, but, uh, is good. Not only from an economic perspective, it helps you acquire more wealth.

And expand the number of businesses or projects that you’re working on, but it does something magical. It releases the stress that you have associated with every complexity in your life. My wife owns a school and she has 16 teachers and, uh, almost 90 students. And she just has not gotten this concept.

She delegates. Tasks, not responsibilities. And so every night at three o’clock in the morning, she’s thinking about different aspects of her business and all of the challenges she has to deal with. See, we entrepreneurs, we don’t go home. We don’t have nine to five. We go home at five o’clock and at five o’clock we start to, um, think about tomorrow, or we start to think about, or we’re still thinking about today and we’re trying to figure out, you know, what it is that we need to do or solve or, and these problems don’t stop and don’t stop at eight o’clock.

It doesn’t stop at at 11 o pm It doesn’t stop at 1:00 PM at 3:00 AM Sorry, 1:00 AM 1:00 AM at 3:00 AM We’re back on it again after maybe sleeping for a few hours from exhaustion. And that’s because we’re responsible for every aspect of our business, every aspect of our success. And if there’s a way that we can release that, that stress, tension, and find others and learn to trust in others to help us build our companies.

It can be magical, because a, a Running a business is not a job. It’s a 24 hour mind cycle that we have to learn how to deal with. And yes, we can check it. And there are times, you know, when and don’t get me wrong. I’m not 100 percent there yet. I still striving to find better balance in my life. But if we can put that in check and we can get others to take on responsibilities, then we could be, uh, then we won’t be the ones at 3 a.

m. thinking about all of the stress and all of the issues that we have in our company. And that can change your health. Michael, I know we’ve probably got a lot of other ideas, and I know you’re in the audience. You know, you’ve. You’ve found ways to deal with the complexities of your business, the stress and how it’s impacted your health.

We’d love to hear from you if you have a story of how your business impacted your health or if you just have a thought and you want to come on stage and talk about it. Michael, I know you’ve got some stories as well, so I’d love to hear from you. Yeah, it’s, it’s interesting hearing what you had to say there, Colin, you know, um, the whole concept of, um, assigning responsibilities, not tasks is quite difficult for a lot of entrepreneurs because they say themselves, but I can do this better.

Or, um, you end up micromanaging people, um, in that, in that process by assigning tasks. And then you’ve got to go along, remember what they’re doing, all that sort of stuff. And so you’re not only remembering what you’ve got to do with all your lists, you then have everyone else’s list as well. And it’ll drive you absolutely crazy.

And I think the, the, the thing that goes hand in hand with assigning responsibilities, Um, is, is how do you keep the person you’ve assigned the responsibility to accountable for that responsibility, but that they go along and they end up reporting to you or to their team leader or, or, or whatever. And I think that’s really one of the challenges where as your business grows as an entrepreneur, if you do not release control to others, you’re And I’ll say this again, if you do not release control to others, you will.

Absolutely kill yourself from stress. You will kill yourself from stress because you’re trying to do, essentially do everything and other people are just arms and legs and this just doesn’t work. Uh, for instance, I, I, um, took over, uh, I had a business partner of 17 years and I bought him out earlier this year in one of my businesses.

And, um, one of the first things I ended up doing was I worked out ways to empower the team. So the first thing I did was I got a credit card for two of the main guys in the team and I said, here’s the credit card. I trust you. Do the right thing by the credit card. And, um, and so they were then empowered to actually spend money in the business.

And that’s the first thing I did. So there’s no point in signing, um, a responsibility column. If you then don’t give the person the ability to follow through that is the responsibility. So let’s imagine you say I’m assigning responsibilities, but every single financial decision has to come back to you.

That’s ridiculous. You haven’t assigned anything. All you’ve done is just, um, you’ve hamstrung that person, a particular person, your company, because they’ve got to come back to you, like Oliver, a cap in hand. And so I said, please, sir, can I have some money to be able to do my responsibility? Can I please have some?

Yeah, they’re like that. And, and so you’re just, you’re strangling your own company and you’re strangling your team for be able to execute on the responsibility you’ve assigned them. So that’s the first thing I did was I, and I, the second thing I had to, yeah. Can I, can I, can I come at you a little bit here?

Yeah, sure. Um, sort of like, so rip off the bandaid a bit. Uh, you know, one of the things I’ve gotten to know you over the years, and I, and I don’t want to speak, you know, I don’t want to say things that, you know, obviously you’re not comfortable with talking about, but you know, one of the things that can cause a lot of stress or, or health issues, I believe is who you surround yourself with and the positivity versus the negativity.

And I, and years ago, you go back years ago in my publicly traded company in 2000s, I had a business partner who I had to fire. He was the chairman of the board too, and it was very, very tough. But, you know, we spent years, probably 10 years, constantly, constantly fighting this individual and the negative.

And I used to say at the time, it takes 10 times as much energy to deal with negative issues as it does positive issues. You know, whether in your business, if you’re in your business and you’ve got people who are, or you’re just starting a business and you have people around you who are just very negative or don’t believe in you, or for whatever reason, though, these things can have an emotional strain, which ultimately lead to health issues, too.

We haven’t even got talking about that. We’re talking more, I guess, more about the mental health issues, but we haven’t talked about how they can lead to physical health issues. Health issues, you know, weight gain, um, you know, eight, you know, heart issues, you know, a blood pressure, all those kinds of things that can come along with that.

Uh, but Michael, you, you, you were very stressed out. You were, you were in a bad, in a bad state about a year and a half ago, two years ago, because of the people who you were surrounded with and you managed to get out of that. So I don’t know if you can share a little bit more about that story and how far you can go with that.

But I’m certain. We’d all like to hear a bit more. Yeah, yeah, it’s, uh, it’s, it’s an interesting story, um, Colin, and thank you for asking. Um, how can I, where do I start? Yeah, I think the, uh, the, the, the thing that happens when you have an equal partnership, for those of you in the audience there who’ve got equal partnerships, the thing that happens when you have an equal partnership is the person who’s prepared to say no is actually in the superior position.

Mm hmm. And so you think about it. Um, do you want to go along and tackle a new market or something like that? Or the answer is no. Do you, we need to tackle a new market. No, you can’t do that. We need to release a new product. No, we need to put on additional stuff. No, we need to go along, raise some capital.

No. So that person is actually in the driver’s seat. And the problem is, though, for the entrepreneur, typically when you have a, a partnership, one person will be very likely the, the operations person. They normally say no. And the entrepreneur who is wanting to go along, move forward with a yes. Ends up unbelievably frustrated and stressed as they watch one opportunity after another, after another, after another, split through the hands of the business because the operations person seen, um, is saying no.

So, so there I was traveling along in the company and I’m receiving essentially a no continuously and then getting micromanaged. And so it became incredibly difficult. Incredibly difficult situation and very, very frustrating to the point where I’d be waking up and I have a stress barometer. And my stress barometer is, uh, if I’m not under stress, I sleep the whole night through.

And, but if I’m under stress, I’m waking up every, every hour to two hours, I’m constantly waking up at night. And I always know when I’m under stress. If I’m waking up and I was in the end, I was at the point where I was, I had night after night after night where I wasn’t getting a proper sleep, and the pressure, uh, that was, was put on me was, was quite extreme.

It got to the point where it was actually on the colon, it was on the um, um, but May last year or I had a board meeting and I said, uh, said to my business partner, I just can’t go on like this. Um, we’re at loggerheads and I, I looked, he, he was quite a bit older than me. I looked at it this way. Um, he had his foot in the brake.

I had my foot in the accelerator and the car was spinning its wheels. And it was a really, really difficult and intense situation. And I said to him, uh, you’re going to have a choice, basically either. I go or you take three months off, um, and full pay and all that sort of stuff. And just get your head back into the game and we’ll have a conversation when you, when you, when you come back.

And so, so he took three months off and then that space, that three months, I began to sort of work away at the business and change a whole lot of things, lots of stuff, and I began to get back in a good place and I thought, Oh, this, this is, this is great. And, um, Then he, then he came back and it went to the same old, same old within about a week.

Um, and the, the, the, the pressure once again, and the stress was It began to manifest itself. So I went once again, I wasn’t sleeping again. And, um, it was a very, very difficult situation at the same time, had another member of the executive team, which just wasn’t performing. I was having to deal with that.

Um, and I’m gonna deal with different members of the staff who weren’t, weren’t doing what they, they, they needed to be doing, delivering, um, on a new product and things like that. And. It was, Colin, it was, um, it was, it was very, very difficult. So I went out for lunch with my business business partner. So I’ve just got to address these issues and say, I’ve got to try to sort my way through this.

Now, you need to understand, this is a guy I’ve worked with and struggled with, for that matter, for a long time. Yeah, so it’s like, this is, by then it was like 16 years or so. And, um, for those of you who have business partners, you could probably relate to this, this story. Anyway, so we’re having lunch together, and across the lunch, he said, Well, you could always buy me out.

And, they’re the words I wanted to hear. I had no idea how I was going to buy him out, and I had no idea how I could possibly execute upon this and all that sort of stuff. And so I, in the middle of this conversation, it actually began to get heated again, and he said, well, you can always buy me out, you know, um, this is the middle of a restaurant.

And I went silent for about like, probably 30 seconds, which is a long time in a conversation when you’re looking across another person, um, cause it’s what I wanted to hear, but it was just. Staggered me that he’d say that, um, it finally, I said to him, look, that’s something I can, I can think about. Let me, let me go away.

Um, and really contemplate this. I was two days after that event, I had my daughter’s wedding and the day after my daughter’s wedding, I was heading to Germany. Um, for, for a client trip and that sort of stuff. And I said, I just need to hit my head in the right spot and really think about this. So three quarters of the way through, through the trip, uh, Colin, I, uh, I sent my business partner an email.

I said, look, I think we need to pursue this, that I will buy you out. Um, under one condition is that I need to get an arbitrator between us. So there’s no, so we have, we, we have all communication go through this, this intermediary that regarding that sort of the biagonal answer stuff. And, uh, I said, the reason why is because I don’t want the emotional angst.

Cause I’m trying to, I’m actually trying to maintain a relationship with my business partner. And so I get back and we begin the process and finally, and I actually ended up taking a week’s vacation where it all came to a head and I’m the good, I spent the first half of the vacation, um, Negotiating, um, uh, on the term sheet and all that sort of thing.

And, uh, I must admit that was, uh, I didn’t get much sleep during that week. That’s for sure. The first half of it. Yeah. I might go. I do want to, I don’t want to, I feel like I’m telling the host to not take the topic offline about closing deals, but, but I, I understand where you’re, where you’re going with this because.

First of all, you had the stress of the whole stress and impact on your health from from having this bad relationship It’s like it’s like a relationship even a non business relationship and then now you’ve got to close the deal and you’ve got the intensity and it’s all happening and And I just want you to talk a little bit also about how do you like mentally and physically?

How did you protect yourself? From the negative health consequences associated with this situation. Yeah, that’s a really interesting question. Um, for those of you who have gone through a situation like this, you’d appreciate this. You actually don’t fully comprehend The toll it takes on you until you get to the other side and you think you’re handling it You really do and then you get to the other side you suddenly think oh my gosh I didn’t realize it was like to be in the sunshine again Versus like in the storm clouds and it was um How did I protect myself?

My, my wife was my anchor during this process and, uh, I would have conversations with her and we would talk our way through things and she was like, if you think it was a pressure cooker, she was like the, the, the pressure release valve. And she was really, she was amazing. Um, Colin, you know, during that period of time I talked to you as well and, uh, that was actually incredibly important, those sort of times.

So I, I. Really recommend to all entrepreneurs have someone, um, or someones you can, you can really spend some time with and talk with and, and be very open. About the way you’re feeling. You’re very open about, um, uh, just some of the angst and some of the pain you’re going through in that process. Like, let me tell you, when you have a situation like I had with a, um, uh, with a business partner I’ve worked with for quite some time, there is a lot of pain in there, there’s enormous amount of pain and things get said from both sides, which is incredibly hurtful.

In that process, even though you’ve got an intermediary, it doesn’t make, it helps shield a bit, but let me tell you, there are some incredibly hurtful things that can get said. And, um, yeah, it’s, uh, yeah, it was, it was really, it was incredibly difficult. Yeah, so I, the thing is though, is that I got to the, finally got to the end, um, And of the process and everything got got signed, you know, the term sheet and all that sort of stuff.

So I effectively had pseudo control. Then it’s got to go to the lawyers and everything like that. By the way, if you think the first round of negotiations is, gee, I’ve sold the business or I bought the business or whatever it is, and you think, oh, gee, it’s all being done now. That’s great. And you got your one and a half page, two pages, a term sheet and that sort of stuff.

If you think that’s it. Then you really haven’t been through this process. You really haven’t because close to that, you go through a process, which will end up involving a hundred and something page legal document with section 10. 4. 1. c is a gotcha. And, uh, there’s all these things and there’s this that just grinds out another month or two if you’re lucky.

Yeah. So it’s, um, yeah. So it, that, that became, yeah. I’m pulling up, I’m pulling on the hook again, right? Because I’m trying to, I’m trying to keep us on track here, Michael, to talk about Yeah. That conflict between health and wealth. Can I take us in a little bit of a different direction here? So, lemme tell you with the health student this time I finish up.

Yeah, yeah. The, the health student this time went down the tubes for me. It really did. Um, it was, I was hardly sleeping. And yeah, I’ll be taking catnaps constantly during the day and all that sort of stuff just to try to get my brain back together. And you’re in, you’re in an intense negotiation and you’re not at your peak self.

Um, and it’s the most critical time and it’s, it’s, it was um, It was, it was incredibly tough. You know, there’s one thing I will say, my accountant reached out to me. Uh, actually the company’s accountant, we have an outsourced CFO and he knew what was happening and all that sort of stuff, he had to be across there.

And he, he asked me something really important. He didn’t say, so how’s the negotiations going and everything like that? He said. Michael, how are you doing? And then he, then he said, it’s pretty grueling, isn’t it? And, uh, and I must admit, like it was just to hear, just to hear that, um, was, was such a, it was almost like a lifeline.

And as entrepreneurs, we need those lifelines. We really do during these intense times. I’m talking about an intense time. I had where I’m buying my business partner out, but we all have different intense times and, um, in those lifelines is it saves us. It really does. Um, I, I must admit that after I went through the first, like the term sheet and all that sort of stuff and, uh, I, I bought a nice gift, um, for him and I said, you wouldn’t believe what that two minute conversation did for me.

And I just want to thank you for that. So those people that provide those lifelines to you, it actually costs them as well. To do that. Um, when you finally get through whatever you’re going through, you get through it all, one of the best things you can do for them and also for you is to thank them and really thank them.

Thank them when you’re in the clear skies, not in the middle of the storm, in the middle of the storm, you will not have the capacity really to thank them in the way you need to, but thank them when you get into the clear skies. Um, so Colin, you want to bring this back on, on, on topic. I’m sort of, as I share this story, I’m reliving it in my head.

Of a really cool, complete entrepreneur episode, uh, called, you know, the art of the negotiation. Yeah, there’s a lot of human elements. And I think you’re, you’re sort of, you’re, you’re putting that in place. And I, you know, maybe we could run with that, uh, if not next week or the week after. Cause I think there’s a lot of aspects of negotiation.

There are, are there more than just the TNCs, more than just, uh, coming up with a red line, we’re talking about a lot of emotional and, and, and tricks and. And techniques, uh, that you can use. Now, let me just reset the room. We’re talking about health versus wealth. Uh, you may be listening to this in podcast on, uh, start scale, exit, repeat serial entrepreneur secrets revealed.

And we do this podcast, um, every Friday two o’clock Eastern, but sometimes we also, uh, throw in a complete entrepreneur show on this podcast network because, you know, entrepreneurship is more than just. A simple code. It’s more than just trying to figure out what it is you need to do to succeed, or what are the hacks, or growth hacks.

It’s also about the human side. And so we try to tackle issues like that, and we do this show, by the way, every Thursday at 5 o’clock Eastern. Uh, we try to do it every week, through the odd week that we’re off. We were on vacation for a couple weeks here. But we are back. Uh, and, um, this is a show that really gets in deep.

Michael, let me take it a little bit of a different direction. Um, I’m thinking back to when I was graduating from college, went to work on the farm, and we had a stand in front of our Um, farm and we did grow strawberries, but we didn’t have enough to really support the market at the time because we were primarily raspberry farmers and, um, we, uh, went up to another neighboring farm and myself, my mother and a couple other people.

And we started to pick these strawberries and we, we, you know, it was tough work. If you’ve ever picked strawberries, so, you know, they’re pretty low down. Raspberries are a little bit higher up, but you know, strawberries, you’ve got to go on your knees, basically in your hands and you’re picking them. And we’d fill, you can fill a pint of strawberries with a good bush, a good time of year, probably in about two or three minutes, and you sell that pint for about 3 a pint or whatever.

And you can start to see like pretty quick. So we started to do this, you know, we sent, uh, the flats over to the stand on our farm and you could see a sea of red lights slamming on their brakes. On this, uh, street in, in, uh, east of Toronto called Bailey and Pickering. Uh, it was actually Ajax, whatever, Ajax, uh, going into Whitby.

But you could see tons of cars slamming on their brakes. It was selling strawberries in the summer. And we laid them all out and you just, car after car, pulled over. And they started buying these things like mad. So I’m like, you know, young and stupid and whatever. I’m like, holy shit, we gotta keep feeding this market.

So I, I, and we couldn’t find enough people. It was too late to get people. So I’m like, okay, mom, like, let’s just go back, like, let’s get some more strawberries. So we went on the farm, and there’s like three or four of us, and we worked for 18 hours. Our knees were bloodied. And this lasted for about two weeks.

Season in Toronto is about two weeks for strawberries. The knees were bloodied. It was, I mean, like, this is, all we were trying to do is make more money. And we’re definitely sacrificing our health in the short term. Now, do I think it was a healthy thing to do? Absolutely. You’re young, you do what you do when you need to make money, you know, and, um, but I’m trying to use this sort of as an analogy in life, you know, you have the opportunity to go do.

Another sale or make another 20 phone calls, but you know what? Maybe you have to give up that time that you would normally spend to go to the gym, or maybe you have to, instead of making the meal, let’s just order Uber eats and let’s work for an extra 45 minutes. Let’s bring in the extra dollars and, but let’s sacrifice this, you know, health always seems to be second.

To making money and that’s been part and parcel of the way that I’ve evolved and I’ve identified that and others have pointed that out to me, like I mentioned earlier in 2017, when it was sort of like, uh, uh, you know, I can’t wait to call it takeover. It was like, uh, awakening and it was something that really did change me in my life, but is there a balance there?

Have you been, you know, do you think there’s an opportunity? Thank you To just keep making money and forget the health because If you’ve got a lot of money, you can take care of your health down the road when you’re older michael You don’t need, you don’t need your help when you’re young. What do you think?

Yeah, that’s an interesting question, yeah. And being facetious, of course, is a bad, you know. I’m hoping you can tell us that. Yeah, I think, I think it’s one of the classic things. You can break the rules for some of the time. You can’t break the rules all the time. Eventually you will pay the piper. So in the case of my story of negotiating with my business partner or with you, like picking strawberries, you know, and that sort of stuff, you can break the rules for a time, but, um, what eventually happens is your body just says my turn.

Um, and I’ll, I’ll never forget your, by the way, your mind is entrepreneurs is amazingly powerful. Incredibly powerful. I’ll tell you a quick story about this. I remember I was at a conference and, uh, and I wasn’t feeling too good at the conference and ended up jumping on the plane, heading back home. And suddenly it hit me.

I picked up some sort of bug and, um, my flight home is not like an hour. It’s more like 70 hours. It’s like 24 hours door to door. And I remember being on that flight and I thought, Oh my gosh, I think I’m going to die, but my brain kept my body together. And I, um, and I got, uh, finally got home, stepped through the door.

And I, and, uh, my wife looked at me and I looked at her and my son was there. He was a bit older and, um, And I began passing out my head, my eyes rolled back in my head and I began passing out and it was, my body said, you’re home, it’s now my turn. That’s essentially what it said. And, um, it was a, it was quite an eye opening experience, but my wife was about to call the ambulance and everything like, what the heck is happening here?

And finally I came to again and everything. Um, but it was, it was funny, you know, as I went through that, it’s called passing out process. Um, I thought to myself, you are such a fake. You’re just a fake. Come on. But I could like, like, you’re not passing out really. And yet I could do nothing about it. My body just took over.

And it was a real lesson to me. Um, and the lesson was this. This is way before the days of COVID and all that sort of stuff. This is 20 years ago or something like that. And it was a real lesson to me where your mind as an entrepreneur Can have you focused and and you could just overcome all like just about all the limitations of your body.

You can go without sleep for 24 hours easy, like not a problem and you could just go, go, go, go, go, go, go. But at some stage, your body is going to say enough’s enough.

So you could be going along as like death by a thousand cuts to your body and not eat the right food, not go along and exercise, not have some time out of just to refresh yourself, all that sort of stuff. And you could keep on pushing through, but every time you do, it’s like another cut. It’s another cut.

And at some point in time, your body will go along and say, enough’s enough. It’s now my turn. And you’ll end up in hospital or you’ll be sick or something like that. In my case, uh, I found out later that the conference, like three quarters of the conference ended up catching some horrible bug and the CDC got involved and all sorts of weird and wonderful things.

But, um, Yeah, but it was a real eye opener for me, Colin, that as entrepreneurs, we’re unbelievably tough mentally. Typical entrepreneurs are really tough and you can push through things. My advice to you is don’t, don’t do that. Um, and just even the back end of the story with me buying my business partner out and all that sort of stuff.

And I can go through the whole negotiations that you don’t know the show. Um, at finally everything, uh, It gets, it gets signed. And, um, I’ve then got to make a whole series of decisions pretty fast because now the business is in your control. So you actually need to typically speak when you buy, buy a company, by the way, you end up cleaning out a lot of the dead wood, lowering expenses to give you to extend the runway so you can then go ahead and build a more solid ground and that sort of stuff.

And, but you’re not in the best mental state to do that. You really aren’t. And, uh, it’s also, it’s a tough, it’s a tough one call, um, in those circumstances, and so what I ended up doing was I actually formulated my plan. Even before the, the, um, the, the buyer sort of negotiations has started. So I knew what I needed to do before I actually took control of it.

I knew exactly what I had to do. And, um, so it was just executing on something I’d already clearly thought about. But yeah, so it’s, it’s like I said, you can, you can break the rules some of the time when it comes to your health, but you cannot. You cannot break the rules all of the time. As entrepreneurs, we’re really good at breaking rules.

In fact, we disrupt industries. We, we change things. And, uh, but eventually if you’re breaking the rules with your life and your lifestyle, Um, you’re, you’re going to run into real problems and you need to think about that in a very serious way. Yeah. And anyway, I got, I got, I got a fucked up idea. You want to hear it?

Sure. Okay. This is diabolical by its worst nature. Okay. Uh, so in my mind, I’m like wealth versus health. And you know, about three years ago I started doing CrossFit. I do it three times a week. I actually take time out of work and I prioritize CrossFit. I’ve been focused on getting healthy because the theory is that if I spend a little bit of time on that I can live longer and make more wealth.

I told you it’s fucked up I’m only doing it to make more wealth. Isn’t that weird like just mentally and I know that might be something I just say to myself, of course, you know, your health is the most important thing You gotta enjoy life and whatnot, but I actually believe if you balance your life and actually focus on your health You could actually make more money because you’re going to live long.

Yeah, I completely agree with you on that, but it’s also, I had a conversation with a good friend of mine one time. He said, um, when you really begin to look at your health and put that as a, as a priority in your life, you become more potent. In the time that you allocate to work and that, that would potent is an interesting one, in other words, you become so much more effective in your work because you’re, you, you are healthy versus if you’re dragging yourself through the day, um, and you’re forcing yourself, you’ll end up thrashing and not, not, uh, achieving all the things you want to achieve during the day.

And that, that to me really spoke to me, like I used to work, um, typically till about three o’clock in the morning and, uh, I would do that night after night and night. By the way, I’d work like that for five days a week. On the weekends, I never work. I just, I don’t work on the weekends. If I have to work on the weekend, that means a disaster has completely happened.

And if you’ve got disasters happening all the time, you’ve got to change the way you do business. So during the week, I work flat. And I, and so after the conversation with him, I completely changed my lifestyle where I, I go to bed now at, if it’s 10 o’clock at night, it’s late for me. It really is. And, um, I go to bed around nine 30, 10 o’clock or something like that.

Um, but I get up early, like I’m, I’m up at five 36 o’clock. Um, that sort of, that sort of timeframe calling it. And I find I’m much more potent. And in those early hours, I’m able to get my work done. Before my schedule gets demolished by all the things of the day, I get my work done. And, um, I find that actually works really well.

And the other thing I ended up doing was, and I’ve done this pro well over a decade now. The first thing I do every morning is I call it input into myself. I sit down and I read a book for half an hour. I may meditate. I might just sit on the couch on my favorite spot or something like that. And I just think I also do do some exercise and that sort of stuff.

Um, and my favorite, my favorite, my favorite is when I get home from work, I, I go in the hot tub. Oh yeah, absolutely. And I transitioned. You convinced me I need to put a hot tub in. I’ll tell you. Oh yeah. Cause I, I transitioned from this sort of like, I’m not saying evil. I don’t think I’m an evil person at work.

I’m just more like a very tough, like. General who’s like commanding orders and, you know, and very staccato like personality. Never. So, uh, going to the hot tub and calming down, relaxing. It changes my state of mind. Um, and then I, and then I’m better able to interact with the family. As well, but I think it has some, I really believe there’s a, a, a physical benefit to, to somehow transitioning your mind from that work environment to this non work environment and your body needs that, right?

And, um, and then I’m easy. Then I can start watching sci fi and. Things like that and connecting into other things like play with my dogs and talk to my kids and all that stuff. Whereas, whereas if I don’t make a transitional point in my day, I end up, I’m still on the computer. I’m still doing my email at 6 30 at night or 7 o’clock and You know, nine o’clock hits and I’m doing some contractor, you know, you sort of have to sort of have to recognize that it’s in our nature to want to make more money all the time.

It’s in our nature to want to work harder all the time. It’s in our nature to win, but what we’re talking about here is you can win. You can live longer. I like your idea, Michael, you can actually be more effective. Because you have taken care of your health and, um, it, it, it, it is, you know, it’s, it’s something that it’s a, it’s a work in progress for me.

I’m telling you, I’m not there yet. Yeah. I think Colin, the thing is though, is that an entrepreneur’s work will never finish. It never finishes. Just, just understand that it never finishes. And by the way, if you get there to the day, I said, I finished all my work. You will create some more work because that’s who you are.

Right. And so understand that, that you will never. So sometimes you need to get to the end of your day, just say, well, I’m just not going to do anymore. That’s tomorrow’s problem. Oh, but I can’t, I’ve got to do blah, blah, blah. Yeah. No, just decide you’re not going to do anymore. Yeah. And it’s, um, it’s so many of us convince ourselves that we, once we get our inbox empty.

Then, um, then you’ll be able to relax for the evening. Your inbox will never be empty. By the way, the best feature of every mobile phone, you take a look at your cell phone, the best feature of a cell phone is the off switch. That’s the best feature they should document that they should put that on a huge billboard that says and comes with an off switch I know do not disservice pretty cool, too.

Yeah. Yeah, that’s exactly right So so for instance, I’m I went out with my wife last night. We went to saw a movie We have the single goal class here where they really treat you bring food to you and all that sort of stuff as you watch the movie and And I, and I got a phone call, as I’m sitting in the lounge before you go to the movie theater, and, uh, I looked at it.

And I just went, do not disturb under any circumstance. This is my time with my wife. We’re going to have a good time tonight. And you know what? That person sent me like five different text messages then and all that sort of stuff, and I still haven’t replied to them. I don’t have to reply to things straight away in this, in this world.

You’ve got this device here and we’re all on it right now. And, um, we think we need to reply to people straight away or something like that, because if I reply to them, it’s off my list. No, just don’t, they’re going to survive. Just don’t reply to them. You know what, that time with your kids is far more important than you sitting there taking that, hopefully they don’t, your kids don’t see you as you just quickly text the reply back.

No, be with your kids. Be with them. So there’s times, like on the weekend, um, I’ve become notorious for this. I just don’t reply to anything on the weekend. Unless it’s a, it’s a, um, an absolute disaster. And if you’ve got disasters every weekend, like I said, you’ve got a real problem in your business. But, um, just manage that the, the biggest stress I think in an entrepreneur’s life nowadays is the fact that you’ve got a cell phone.

That is the biggest stress. It is a wonderful servant, a very bad master. The fact that anyone can get you at any time, you’ll get customers, which will go around their account manager and all that sort of stuff, and they’ll try to come directly to you. You’ll get partners that, which will go around your seat, say COO, they’ll come directly to you.

You’ll, you’ll get, um, all sorts of people try to get to you. Why? Cause they can just call CEO of the company. They can just text them, they can email them, they can do whatever. And you end up with a life, which is, which is just responding the jerk. And even if it’s like, you got to talk to your account manager, you still have to respond to them and all that sort of stuff.

No, just. Rack them up, deal with them 15 minutes all at once and, um, but you don’t have to reply to them. I’ll give a classic example, Col. Um, we got a major client in my business and one of the things that he was very demanding all the time. Uh, incredibly demanding and he knew he was a big fish and all that sort of stuff.

And he acted like one. So I made it my mission across a six month period to not reply to him when he, when he messaged me, I wanted to reply, but I just forced myself not to. And I replied in my time, I replied two days later, a day later, why I began to educate him that even if you’re a big fish, you know what you don’t Trump other things that don’t Trump everything in my life.

There’s other things which are more important, even the big fish. And, uh, and now I’ve got the best relationship ever. He understands that. Um, and completely, no, no, I was upfront with him, said, yeah, there’s other things, so I’m, I’m, I’m, I was with my wife or something or with my kids or whatever, and, or I don’t have to give an excuse.

I was just taking some time off. I’ll get back to you when I can. And it’s so hard for us as entrepreneurs to do that. Colin, I don’t know whether you’ve ever done that, but you’ve got to educate your client base, um, in their rights of access to you, particularly the big guys. Well, actually the small guys too.

The small guys, they’ll torment you. They’re, they’re like, like little minnows constantly biting at your feet. The big guys like the big shark who wants to go along and take chomp off your leg. You know what? It’s in your client’s interest that you’re at a good, good state of health. It really is. It’s in your client’s interest.

Yeah. So when you point it out to them, these sort of things in a polite way and everything like that, and maybe it’s a face to face conversation or something like that, say, look, um, I’m there for you Monday, Friday, I am there. And if it’s an absolute disaster across the weekend, but don’t go along and drive me to the eighth degree, um, about infinitesimal issues.

Yeah, and it’d be interesting to see the reaction of some of them. I’d say, look, I don’t do the same for you. I don’t go along and drive you when I know it’s you with your kids on the weekend or something like that. So please respect me on that side as well. And you know what? I find the majority of people are actually pretty good with that.

They really are, but also save them. If it is a disaster, I will be there for you. Yeah. So it’s, um, it’s managing, it’s managing your customers and managing your suppliers, managing your partners and all that sort of stuff. And, and managing yourself and managing yourself. But I think the biggest thing is managing yourself.

Right. That’s right. That’s right. And that’s what this show is all about. That’s what we just touched the surface of it. And yeah, there is a mental side, which we haven’t really focused on here, uh, but there’s also a physical health side. And of course there’s a business side and there’s a family side. And, and managing that, managing that equation, if done right, real wealth will come with real health as well.

And I think that’s what this show’s been all about. And I think we, we, we barely touched the surface. Any last thoughts, Michael, before we wrap up? Yeah, sure. And I wanted to, uh, talk a little bit about tomorrow’s show as well. Yeah, I think my last thoughts are this is that if you’re serious about this, then you also don’t need to not only need to sort of learn to look after yourself and then the way you interact and all that sort of thing, but think of your team to, for instance, we, we actually have a well being manager in my business.

And we had a retreat. Um, we took all the team away. We looked at the next six months of planning and all that sort of stuff. And, um, she, she went along and gave a talk for, uh, an hour and a bit on health. Purely on health, on eating, on physical health. Like I, I run a, a very, very, um, intense online business.

And we’re all sitting in front of computers all day. All right. So she talked about this and it was a real eye opener because a lot of the team didn’t know a lot of the things and the impact, a lot of things they’re doing. And so, yeah, so we’re serious about this. And so her goal is then to educate them.

Like every, every team member can make their own decisions, but to educate them, provide them the knowledge of, of, uh, better health. And, uh, that actually is really, really good. Um, and dare I say, um, my wife was the one who is a wellbeing manager. She’s a trained operating theater nurse. She’s also a pastry chef.

So I like to say to people, she can put you in a hospital and then fix you up. It’s, it’s, uh, it’s actually a real passion for it. It’s all about nutrition and health and all that sort of stuff, which is, which is really useful. And, um, And really seriously caring for people in your organization, um, is important.

But anyway, that’s the last I had to say on this topic, I think Colin. So I’d love to hear what’s going on with, with startup by club. What’s what’s happening there. Yes. And if you haven’t already done so go to startup. club, sign up for the email list. We have booked eight speakers already for September, October, uh, on the show.

And they’re phenomenal entrepreneurs. Tomorrow, we are going to have a very special guest. Her name is Marsha Reese and she is in the audience right now. Hello, Marsha. Uh, and the reason why we’re excited about tomorrow is that it’s all about figuring out the next big idea that can make you. Uh, can make you rich, essentially, or give you wealth, make you money.

Uh, the next invention. And in the book, Start, Scale, Exit, Repeat, uh, Marsha’s been on our shows before, and we actually, um, used a lot of her stories in the book when it comes to ideas are everywhere, and that was chapter two. And just give me a minute here, but let me give you one paragraph. One of our Startup Club members, Marsha Reese, once said, Ideas come from an unfulfilled needs in our lives.

In the 1970s, her daughter loved doing arts and crafts, and enjoyed drawing with chalk. But Marsha didn’t want her daughter using regular chalk. Because of the toxic ingredients, the things like that. So not to mention there was a, uh, uh, uh, There was a creativity limit with having only one color option.

You know, the remember white chalk, thin chalks. And, uh, so Marcia decided to create something called Sidewalk chalk. Well, I’m not going to get into detail today because we are going to do that tomorrow. And she’ll tell the story, uh, on the show, but Sidewalk Chalk became very successful and you can begin to think about your own life and ideas are everywhere.

And begin to think, how can I take those ideas and turn them into a business, turn them into a startup venture? And that’s what we’re going to conquer tomorrow. This book, Start, Scale, Exit, Repeat, interviewed over 200 people. And Marsha was one of those people. We took only the best interviews, about 50, and put those people in the book.

Uh, and today has won. It’s one of our 12 awards. It’s been, uh, number one in 13 categories on Amazon. Uh, and by the way, Michael, we just got a, an airport deal with Hudson’s and WH Smith. They are now going to be carrying the paperback version, which comes out October 27th in every airport in the United States.

And that’s coming out, um, October 27th, the book, but the deal is, is, is starting September 1st with, with those, um, those two companies and, and they, and Hudson’s is the largest, uh, book company in the airports in the United States. Uh, so much more to talk about. But we are out of time and you’ve been listening to The Complete Entrepreneur every Thursday at 5 o’clock Eastern.

And you’ve been listening to it on the Start, Scale, Exit, Repeat, Serial Entrepreneur Secrets Revealed podcast with background noise from my dog. Hopefully you haven’t heard too much of my dog barking there. But uh, it is a live show. We’re live. We’d love to have you on stage. You can come to Clubhouse and join us on Startup Club and join us on stage every five o’clock, every Thursday or two o’clock, every Friday.

We’ll see you all next week. I’ll be looking forward to seeing you on stage, sir. So yeah, Marshall. Yeah. I look forward to seeing you next week too, but, um, Marsha, sorry, yes, sorry. Yeah. We’re talking over each other. Any thoughts about tomorrow’s show, Marsha going to give us a taste? No, I’m excited to be with you all.

You know, it’s your wisdom and your knowledge and your stories that have inspired and helped so many people. So we’re very excited to having you on. Thank you very much. And I must tell you, your new book is fantastic. A very must have for every entrepreneur’s desk. I’d agree with you with that much.

Marsha Colin has done an amazing job encapsulating in stock scale, exit, repeat, you know, the essence of what entrepreneurship really is. And I’ve been an entrepreneur since I was 16. I’ve always worked for myself, I’m now 58, and his book sits on my desk. Yeah, because it’s, it’s almost like a manual, isn’t it, Marcia?

You can look it up and you go, oh, there’s a chapter on this. So that’s great. Yes, and that’s so many references to real, live examples. I know I’ve been an entrepreneur my whole life. I did a short stint working for the sixth largest toy company. And, you know, I had a bunch of MBAs that reported to me and they were far more educated academically than I was, but none of them had that gut intuition of when to pull the trigger.

So there’s just so much that an entrepreneur has to have intuitively. And a resource like Collins is, is one of those things that really can help boost and fill in the, uh, the short spots when you need a little extra advice. Couldn’t agree with you more. It really is. And congratulations, Colin, on getting that deal with Hudson’s and WH Smith for the airport bookstores.

I know many of us go to those bookstores and end up buying a book. Um, and so you’ll be able, they’ll be able to see, um, Start, Scale, Exit, Repeat. And it’s going to be amazing, like the paperback version is coming out, which is fantastic. And if you haven’t got the book, then go and get it. If you have read the book and you think, my gosh, it’s amazing.

Uh, let me tell you, go and buy a copy for a friend. Go and buy a copy for a friend and give it to them and tell them to do likewise. Um, it’s one of those books, which has an incredible amount of wisdom in it, not just knowledge, but wisdom. And nowadays you can, you can get knowledge anywhere, but it’s very few places you can get wisdom from.

And I would say that’s the difference with this book. So Colin, thank you for putting that together. I know it was a real labor of love. It’s not. Great big money earner for you or anything like that. But it’s a labor of love and it’s something that you’re passionate about this community with. And, um, thank you for taking the time for putting together start, scale, exit, repeat.

It really is an amazing, amazing achievement. And I’m sure there’s going to be with any luck, there’ll be a sequel aside, start, scale, exit, repeat two or a handbook or something like that. Because once again, that’ll become a part of my reading list. That’s for sure. Alright, you guys are amazing. We’ll see y’all next week and we’ll see, or we’ll see you tomorrow, on Friday at 2 o’clock Eastern to hear Marcia and learn about how we can take ideas and make money from them.

Bye for now. Sounds like a great time. See you later everyone. Take care.